植物生理

The term bilin is a collective one to describe a broad group of open chain tetrapyrroles and derives from the name “bile pigments” as the first of these compounds to be characterized were isolated from animal bile. These bilins, biliverdin (BV) and bilirubin (BR), are the sequential products of heme de ...

Heme is perhaps the most ubiquitous cofactor found in nature and the most functionally diverse. Hemoproteins are involved in cell respiration (cytochromes), oxygen-binding and transport (hemoglobin and myoglobin), oxidative bio transformations (cytochrome P-450 and perox ...

This chapter addresses basic methodology that can be used to obtain tetrapyrrole macrocycles in the porphyrin and chlorin series from natural materials and some simple methods for the total chemical synthesis of typical pyrroles and porphyrins. The aim is to provide investigators with ...

Since the 1963 seminal review of Smith and French (62), our understanding of the chlorophyll (chl) biosynthetic pathway has changed dramatically. Several factors have contributed to this phenomenon, among which are: (i) development of systems capable of Chl and thylakoid membrane bios ...

Methods of gene cloning and genetic engineering of immunoglobulins and transgenic plant techniques have given rise to new approaches in plant biotechnology (1). The high affinity and specificity of antibodies to different structures can be used to block regulation factors in plant cel ...

Plant and animal RNA viruses are increasingly used for gene delivery and expression in a variety of host cells. At a molecular level these agents can be viewed as cytosolic parasites of the ribosome, successfully competing for translation with the host messenger RNA (mRNA) population. In many vi ...

We are interested in studying plant systems as vehicles for the production of recombinant proteins of clinical relevance. There are a number of potential advantages to producing recombinant protein products in plants. Plants are more economical compared to fermentation or cell-cul ...

The discovery that the expression of a viral coat protein in transgenic plants confers protection to infection by homologous and related viruses (1–4) revolutionized the field of plant breeding. The approach of “coat protein-mediated protection” (CPMP) became an extensively studied ...

The importance of proteolytic enzymes in plant-pest and plant-pathogen interactions has recently been recognized, and control strategies based on their inhibition with protease inhibitors (PIs) have been developed or proposed to control herbivory insects (1), plant parasitic f ...

One of the most important considerations in the expression of heterologous proteins in plants is the choice of promoter. The study of promoter activity is simplified in the majority of cases by the use of a readily detectable reporter gene. Indeed, reporter genes can also be used to aid the isolation of ...

Legumes form an important element in many ecological and agricultural environments. In order to improve the range of phenotypes available for agriculture, plant breeding programs seek to produce improved varieties. Inevitably, these programs are limited by the available gene pool a ...

Electrophoresis is defined as the migration of a charged particle in an electric field. Electrophoretic techniques have been used to analyze, separate, and characterize proteins, peptides, and nucleic acids. A number of different one-dimensional electrophoresis techniques ha ...

In eukaryotic cells, secreted proteins can be subjected to numerous post-translational modifications. One of these, glycosylation, consists of the addition of sugar residues to the protein backbone, while the protein enters or travels within the secretory pathway. Glycosylation ...

Recent developments in genetic engineering and molecular biology have enabled the production of transgenic plants with improved characteristics, or cell and tissue cultures with altered or improved metabolic activity. However, no universally applicable gene transfer meth ...

An IgG-type antibody is a Y-shaped protein whose arms form two identical antigen-binding sites that are highly variable between different molecules. The stem of the Y is part of the constant region of an antibody and has very limited diversity, which can be used to detect and quantitate antibodies. T ...

Photosynthesis, as the basic process leading to biomass accumulation, is intrinsically limited by the performance of the photosynthetic apparatus under different environmental conditions. Potentially, substantial increases in crop yield and improved efficiency of prod ...

Genes encoding heterologous proteins are introduced into the plant genome for several purposes. First, the plant-made protein can be used as a tool in fundamental research. Reporter proteins can be used to characterize promoter sequences and other cis-acting sequences; the overprodu ...

The ability to introduce foreign genes into plant species by techniques such as Agrobacterium-mediated transformation or by direct gene transfer (e.g., biolistics) has opened up the possibility of using transgenic plants as host organisms for the production of heterologous protei ...

In almost all living organisms, proteolytic enzymes are involved in a variety of cellular functions not only associated with the control of specific endogenous metabolic reactions, but also with the degradation of abnormal or exogenous (“foreign”) proteins (1). Despite the fundament ...

Transient expression of genes in plant protoplasts is a powerful tool in plant molecular biology that allows quick screening and analysis of engineered proteins prior to stable transformation. Although stably transformed plant material may be preferable in many instances, transf ...